Spice Box of Earth

Ahhh, a week in glorious Paree and I have missed my bread machine. Baguettes are all very well and good, but sometimes I crave a nice white fluffy slice.

I recently bought some bread machine mixes, one of which was garlic and rosemary, and was so offended by its containing milk and eggs (what the hey?) that I set to making my own effort. I should have known better……

N.B. This recipe is for my mini 1lb loaf machine! You’ll need to double for a regular sized bread machine; please let me know if it works out ok if you try it! :)

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup plus 3 tablespoons warm water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1.5 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or VERY finely chopped
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 2 cups strong white bread flour
• 3/4 tsp fast action yeast

Put all ingredients into the bread machine pan in the order shown. Use the basic white loaf setting. Enjoy!

BV (before vegan) I used to adore these doughy cinnamon rolls - not the flaky pastries you understand, but the stodgy, sweet, yeasty wonder of big fat cinnamon rolls.

Now, I’m no bread baker, but recently I acquired a bread machine, and now I’m utterly in love. My trick is to let the machine make my dough for me, be it focaccia, ciabatta, or whatever. All the cinnamon roll bread machine recipes I found contained milk and eggs, but I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop me, and I more or less veganised this recipe in the end.

This recipe is for a regular sized bread machine, so you’ll want to half it if you have a weeny 1 pounder, like me!

Ingredients:

•     1 cup + 2 tbsp warm soya milk
•     3 tbsp vegetable oil (rapeseed/sunflower)
•     1 very ripe banana, pureed (add a tiny bit of soya milk if necessary)
•     1/2 cup soft brown sugar
•     4 cups plain flour
•     1 tsp salt
•     3 tsp instant dried yeast

For the filling:

• 2 tbsp margarine (I used vitalite)
• 3/4 cup soft brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon

For the topping:

• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• a few dribbles of soya milk

Place the ingredients into the bread machine in the order shown above. Run the dough cycle. When the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 165°C. Roll the dough into a rectangular shape and prepare the filling; over a low heat mix the margarine, sugar and cinnamon until it is thoroughly mixed. Spread this over the dough.

Roll the dough into a swiss roll shape, beginning at the side to make a longer roll. Slice into reasonably thick slices, about 1” thick. Place the doughy rolls in a greased baking tray, not too close together. Bake for 15 minutes.

While the rolls are baking, mix just enough soya milk with the icing sugar to create a glaze. You should dribble this over the rolls as soon as they come out of the oven. You’ll also want to transfer them to a cooling rack as soon as possible, before the caramelised sugar sticks them to the baking tray forever!

Enjoy :)

Sounds fancy, but yes, another filthy cheat. Praise be to both my bread machine’s dough cycle, and to Sainsbury’s.

No-one need ever know….